


a little heart hope

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, One Shot, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), gavin is briefly there.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23505103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Connor and Daniel's paths cross at New Jericho.
Relationships: Connor/Daniel (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 113





	a little heart hope

Connor was an android designed to hunt, though not necessarily  _ kill _ . But he knows how to fight, and he knows how often he used that ability to fight, even if he wasn’t always perfect, even if he has the marks on his body to prove that he wasn’t always better than a deviant. There’s a difference between a machine designed to hurt to achieve the end goal of their mission and a deviant fighting for survival. He didn’t always win. Not really. There are fractures inside of him detailing all of the times he lost.

But he’s here now, at New Jericho and all its glory. Rooms for board, stocked full of Thirium and biocomponents. They don’t quite have the funds to get a proper hospital for androids yet. It’s taking too much. Everything is always taking too much.

Connor’s hands shake, and he doesn’t know if it’s anxiety making some physical show of it, nerves knot around him now, threaded through every part of his being, refusing to let go. He shouldn’t be shaking. There shouldn’t be a reason that he’s shaking. Deviants feel but they don’t need to feel so fully that they can’t lock it down underneath everything else. It’s like when he cries. All that he gets from it is annoyed in the end, angry that it’s another thing he can’t find a way to stop.

“Connor?”

He looks up, pressing his hands into tight fists, “Hello.”

“Do you remember me?” he asks, turning around the corner, hesitating by the door.

“Of course I do.”

How could he forget? PL600. Little girl hanging off a roof. Dying cop on the ground. The first time he ever broke a law was two minutes after he was activated, picking up a gun and threatening to use it. Mostly, though, Connor remembers his body hanging from hooks in the archive room. He was too broken then to do anything about it. There was no reason to activate him, there was no reason to talk to him. But there he hung anyway, splattered with blood and bullets. Fighting instead of running.

It only gets people dead.

“What happened?” Daniel asks, nodding to his hands. “Who did you punch?”

Connor moves his hands, wishing there was a place to properly hide them, but there isn’t. It’s all of his rage, all of his terror held out on display with the blood and broken pieces.

“A tree.”

“Trees bleed red?” Daniel takes a step forward. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“No. Of course not,” Connor stands. “But that doesn’t mean I want to tell you.”

  
  


It wasn’t him that they wanted. Daniel knows that. Jericho put in an order for a PL600 kept captive in the archive room and they came back with Daniel. They didn’t even think to check. They thought the police had done the work for them. They sent their serial numbers and details and the detectives had grabbed the first PL600 they could find, the one less broken, and sent him away. The people that put him back together again didn’t know. Nobody knew until Daniel stepped foot out of those rooms, half awake, delirious, not knowing what happened but being hugged by strangers calling him Simon.

It fell apart quickly. Daniel pushed them away. He ran. He came back, eventually, when he realized there was nowhere else to go and even if he had deviated, even if deviants are often forgiven for their crimes in those few hours after deviancy, when the emotions are at their strongest, breaking them down, nobody really wants to forgive an android for nearly killing a little girl. They can ignore the murder of the father, but the little girl?

_ How could you? _

Daniel doesn’t leave his room often. He’s always trying to formulate a plan. Somewhere he can go. Something he can do. He changed his hair color, cut the length, hated it, put it back again. He needs to be someone else but trying to be someone else leaves him with this weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. A new rage ignited that he can’t run away from.

He should just leave Detroit. Vanish from Michigan. Go somewhere that won’t recognize him. He can lie about his name, he can lie about everything.

But he stays. Frozen with that fear.

He tried to go back to the Phillip’s residence once. He stood outside the apartment, trying to decide how good or bad of an idea it was, trying to fit the words together in his head into an apology that wasn’t laced with excuses. By the time he made a decision, he realized they probably didn’t even live there anymore. When he went to leave, he passed the spot where his body fell, and he thought he could see Thirium in the cracks of the sidewalk.

And then he ran again.

And then he found something to destroy.

And then he found Connor.

  
  


Connor doesn’t really believe Daniel is following him, but their paths cross often. He supposes this is because they both take the long routes to places. Back down the furthest hallways, down the stairs hidden in dusty corners. They don’t want to be around others. Connor has always included Daniel in that  _ others  _ category, but there’s always been little to do about it. It’s easier to see Daniel a few times every day than all of the people who still stare at him with a question in their eyes—

_ If I was programmed to be a deviant hunter— _

_ I would’ve deviated a lot faster. _

_ I would’ve never hurt my own people. _

He wishes—

He wishes sometimes that he had seen the fear in Daniel’s eyes on that rooftop and taken it in and deviated there. He wishes he could’ve done something to save him, though he knows whatever happened, Daniel was always going to die. Emma was always going to be traumatized. The father was always going to be dead.

“Hiding here again?”

“Would you leave me alone?” Connor whispers.

“My room is up that way,” Daniel says. “You’re blocking the stairs.”

Connor moves to the side, leaving him space to get past him, but Daniel only sits on the empty space beside him, cramped and close. Closer than Connor has allowed another android to get to him. Closer in a different way than the fights he gets into.

“Another fight with the tree?” he asks.

Connor glances up at him, away again. There is blue staining his fingertips from where he wiped away the blood on his nose, it’s spotting the white shirt he wears, but Connor hasn’t moved to change. He would be safe and alone in his room, but there are too many mirrors in there. He’s scared of breaking one. Again. One hanging on the back of the door, another in the bathroom, a third over the desk in the corner. The rooms are set up like little hotel rooms. Nothing that isn’t necessary for an android except what they bring, which is very little. Clothes to hang in the tiny closet. Maybe a book to set on the nightstand. Nothing to distinguish one room from the next. Not unless they’re here for too long.

“I don’t understand it,” Connor says quietly. “Why I’m—”

“So angry?”

He nods.

“I don’t have an excuse. All of us were manipulated by CyberLife and pushed behind a dozen walls to prevent us from being ourselves. But nobody else is so…” he trails off, looks up to Daniel again. “You were going to be replaced. I get your anger. I don’t get mine. Markus… he was kind when he helped me. He didn’t push me. There was no threat.”

Daniel doesn’t say anything. Maybe he doesn’t know what to say. Maybe it was stupid for Connor to say any of this, but Daniel is the only one here, he’s the only one that Connor thinks is hated as much as he is by the people here. Daniel is here, and he has this look, constantly, like he is going to snap something in half. He has the look that keeps people away.

He looks, a little bit, like he has the same kind of anger that Connor has seen in the faces of the people around him. Hank and Fowler and Gavin. Markus, too, but Markus is controlled. Markus doesn’t let it slide. But even the humans have started to let go of a little bit of their anger. Not entirely. It’s covered up now, the world changing too quickly to hold onto the things they were angry about before. 

“Are you angry at yourself or them?”

_ Both.  _ Both. Easily both. But admitting to the former feels dangerous, even if he knows people would be happy to hear that he has some kind of guilt and hatred towards himself for what he did. It toes the line of being too much to admit to Daniel. So he leaves. He leaves without saying anything because he doesn’t know how to, and he thinks his leaving is an admission. He thinks even Daniel posing the question was his way of telling Connor he knows.

Maybe Daniel gets it, too.

Maybe that anger in him isn’t for the world or for the androids here that despise him. Maybe it’s just for himself.

  
  


“Hey.”

“H-Hi.”

“You ran away from me last night,” Daniel says. “What happened?”

“I had—I had to go. I had—You didn’t hear me say goodbye?” Connor asks. “I said goodbye.”

“Right. Must’ve glitched.”

“Right. Sorry.”

He prefers Connor like this. Nervous, looking away, sheepish and bashful. He prefers it over the sad look Connor has on his face whenever Daniel finds him in the hallways back here or hiding on the stairs.

“Do you want to come upstairs?” Connor asks. 

“To your room?”

He nods, “We can talk.”

“Okay.”

  
  


They’ve been talking for hours, laying beside each other on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. It’s easy to fill in the silence between them. Connor thought it was a mistake at first—fumbling for words that wouldn’t be too serious or too joking. He doesn’t know where either of them land. They spent a long time avoiding  _ before _ , when they first met. Connor spends an even longer time thinking about it.

He turns on his side, watching Daniel watch the ceiling, “Do you think about her?”

“Who?”

“Emma.”

“Yeah. All the time. Do you?”

Connor nods, looking away. “You think we can ever make up for those things?”

“No. Never.”

  
  


They meet up more frequently and Daniel catches Connor around the corner, staring up at the ceiling, sitting on the steps, as though he’s waiting for him. Maybe it’s hopeful wishing, that Connor lingering there without tears in his eyes and blood on his hands means he’s here for Daniel and not for the desire to be alone, but not closed off in the same-same-sameness of their rooms a floor above.

They talk. A lot. They don’t settle on the serious things. They always skip over them, wait until late at night when Daniel is in Connor’s room, laying on the bed in the dark, to divulge their thoughts and feelings on something they’d done before. Daniel doesn’t have much to say. There’s little to confess. Connor was there for almost the entirety of his post-deviation mistake, and there are only so many times he can tell Connor about how he knows he isn’t what the others wanted. He is nothing like Simon. He couldn’t be more mirrored from their beloved boy if he tried. But Connor has a thousand things to say. A hundred mistakes to confess too, a dozen deaths he feels responsible for.

It’s difficult—

It’s difficult to know that Connor wasn’t at fault for them, but Daniel was still at fault for his. He should’ve been able to control it. All those emotions—he should’ve been able to do something other than resort to violence. He can’t forgive himself for that. But Connor keeps saying that it wasn’t the same for him. Orders weren’t clear. They were left vague, up to him to decide where they went, and they often went to an android dying because he was too reckless and careless. But he  _ wasn’t  _ reckless and careless. He was  _ incapable  _ of being reckless and careless.

_ Orders don’t make it okay. _

No—

It doesn’t make the act of it okay.

But it’s more complicated, with them, when they’re programmed to obey. There are things that people did to him, that they told Daniel to do, that makes him feel wrong and broken now.

“Can we talk about something else?” Connor says, eventually, always, at the end of an hour that he’s spent with his face carefully set in stone, with his hands tugging at the edge of Daniel’s jacket, messing with the zipper on it to give him something to do.

“Yeah. How about the tree?”

“I don’t know. Does anyone really want to talk about the tree?”

“I do. What’s the tree’s name?”

“Gavin.”

“Gavin,” he echoes. “Do you like him?”

“No,” Connor laughs. “I don’t know. I think I like someone else.”

“Who?”

Connor’s hand pauses, Daniel’s zipper left drawn up to his neck. “Can I get back to you on that?”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

  
  


The point is for it to hurt. The point is for him to bleed. It’s one of the reasons why he asked Gavin. He knew he wouldn’t hold back. He knew the feelings between them would fuel enough that they’d slip up with pulling their punches. They aren’t training to be better. They just want to hurt. They just need to get rid of all the negative things they’re keeping inside. Gavin keeps a lot inside. Connor can tell. He doesn’t talk. He barely says two words when he arrives at the gym and he says even less when he leaves.

Even so—

Usually once the blood appears on either of them they stop. They’re doing it to get back at each other—Gavin angry that Connor beat him in the archive room and Connor just angry at Gavin in general—but they’re not really supposed to break bones. Even bruises sometimes feel bordering the edge too much.

Connor tips Gavin’s chin up, turning his face to the side, eyeing the curve of his nose, “It’s not broken.”

“Good,” he says. “I’d make you pay the hospital bills.”

“I’m sure,” he lets go of him. “Do you want me to apologize?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry.”

“That felt very real, Connor, I think you’re getting the hang of it,” Gavin says, standing up. “We done here?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

He watches Gavin leave, packing up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He takes a step toward him, his name on the tip of his tongue.  _ Stop. Stop. Stop. _

“Gavin?”

“What?”

“Does this help?” he asks.

“What? Fighting?” Gavin shrugs. “Why? You backing out?”

“I’m sure you can find someone else to beat you up.”

“Prefer you, though.”

“O-Oh?”

“I didn’t mean it any other way than you’ve got a very punchable face,” Gavin says. “Don’t stress. I don’t like you. You’re just a good fighter. That’s all.”

“Okay. And how—how do you know? When you like someone? For a reason other than that they have a punchable face?”

“You have a crush?”

Connor grimaces, turning away, “There’s someone I talk to. He’s the only person I talk to. I like him. I don’t know how I like him, though. We’re both… messy.”

“Is that why you want to stop fighting? For him?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Are you thinking it?”

“No,” Connor sighs. “No. I only feel… at peace after this. Or—”

“Or?”

“Or when I’m with him.”

“Okay,” Gavin sets his bag back down, crossing the room back toward him. “This doesn’t make us friends, alright? Me giving you relationship advice, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“You can stop prefacing everything you say or do around me about how little it means, Gavin. I know you don’t like me.”

“Good. Okay,” he says. “You said you feel better around him?”

“Yes. Calm.”

“And when you think about him? Do you get excited to talk to him?”

“Yes, but—” he cuts himself off. “That’s just how it’s supposed to be when you have friends, you’re supposed to like them.”

“Do you think about kissing him?”

He’s quiet, watching Gavin’s face, watching every movement of his carefully. “Yes. Sometimes.”

“Good. There. You’ve got it.”

“And what if I’m just confused? What if—”

“You gotta stop acting like your first crush is going to be your soulmate, Connor,” Gavin says. “Majority of the people here have crushes on people. They have multiple relationships. Things don’t go as planned. You’re putting too much pressure on your first… whatever it is. Friend, boyfriend, whatever. You have to calm down.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked help from someone who’s dated thirty people.”

“Okay, first of all,” Gavin says with a laugh. “I’ve only dated ten, so back off. Secondly, you can’t call me a whore when I already know I am one. It doesn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t call you a whore.”

“Whatever. That’s not the point. You aren’t human, you didn’t get to grow up and have schoolboy crushes on kids in your class. But that doesn’t mean your relationships have to be like… headed towards anything. You’re allowed to test the waters.”

“I don’t want Daniel to be an experiment. I want it to be real.”

“Then let it be real. Just let it be fun, too.”

“Serious relationships can’t be fun?”

“That’s not what I meant. Look, you already said I was bad at this. I don’t get why you’re asking me,” he says. “Do you have no other friends?”

“No. You’re it.”

“Hm,” Gavin sighs. “Just tell him you like him, then. Leave it vague. See where he fills in the gaps. You’re never going to understand how you feel towards him if you don’t say something.”

  
  


“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Connor smiles, trying his best to shove it back down. There’s something about Daniel that is so careless, that is so careful. He is wound up, coiled like he’s always ready to attack, always ready to defend, but the way he leans against the door frame, the way he looks at Connor—

It’s like he’s happy to see him. It’s like he wanted to see Connor. 

“Do you want to come in—”

“I like you.”

“What?”

“I like you,” Connor repeats, and he bites his tongue.

_ Fill in the gaps. _

_ Leave it vague. _

“Oh.”

Connor waits. Waits for the gaps to be filled, waits to see Daniel’s reaction, waits for something other than himself to guide this to where it’s going to go. But there’s nothing. Nothing but expectant silence filling up the void between them, “Daniel?”

“I like you, too.”

“Okay.”  _ Fill in the gaps.  _ Gavin’s horrible. The worst piece of advice he’s ever heard. “Do you know how I mean it? When I say I like you?”

“I assume it means you like me,” Daniel replies.

“You’re very funny,” Connor says. “Daniel—”

He steps forward, a hand coming up to Connor’s face, resting on his cheek, another on his waist, pulling him forward, “Connor, I know what you meant.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Yes,” he says, and the word brushes across Connor’s lips, quiet and disappearing when Daniel kisses him.

Connor hasn’t been kissed before. He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. He doesn’t know if either of them are doing it right. But it lights up this thing inside of him that seems to only receive any sign of life when Connor is around Daniel, when their hands brush against each other when they stand in the hallway. It’s brighter than the bonfire anger that still resides inside of him, but it doesn’t shut it out.

_ Are you angry at yourself or at CyberLife? _

Both.

But kissing Daniel, he feels a little less angry at himself.


End file.
